Problem Solving

Generally, I think good coaches are good teachers, and good problem solvers.  I have always enjoyed successfully solving difficult problems – whether it is putting together a defensive game plan to neutralize a high powered offense, or trying to figure out how to efficiently get 220 athletes trained at a high level during a 2 hour and 15 minute summer school class.

A football coach colleague of mine posed a question to me on Friday evening, after downloading and looking at my 4 day a week workout plan.  He was planning on using it, and liked the different cycles, but knew he wanted to go to a 3 day a week program for his players in the spring.  Friday night my brain started thinking about ways to adjust the program so he, and others, could utilize the same concepts during a 3 day a week lifting program.

As a result of that question, and attempting to solve that problem, I developed a 3 day a week lifting program that I share today.  It is an Excel Workbook that has templates that can be used for yourself, or your athletes.  The instructions on its use are similar to the instructions I have previously posted for the 4 day a week program.  Some changes:

The program still has 4 “core” lifts, bench, squat, clean, and push press.  Each week, over a 4-week cycle, you will do three core lifts, and omit one for the week.  It looks like this:

  • Week 1         Bench, Push, Clean
  • Week 2         Push, Clean, Squat
  • Week 3         Clean, Squat, Bench
  • Week 4         Squat, Bench, Push

Each workout card still has 3 different “cycles” (3×8, 5×5, and 3×3) printed on it, with all the weights based on their one rep max.  On the “quote” page of the workbook there are two things you can change.  One is the quote or reminders that get put on each workout sheet for that week, and the other is a “pull down” menu to select which week workout you want to use.  When you select a week, it will automatically populate their workout cards for the new weeks lifts and weights.

Again, this workbook is protected except the cells that information needs to be entered.  There is no password.  If you want to change any information in the sections of the workbook or sheets that are protected, unprotecting it is pretty straight forward:  With the sheet you want to unprotect open, go to Tools>>>Protection>>>Unprotect Sheet.

Please feel free to download this workbook (and any others that I have shared) play with it, use it, test it, and let me know what you think.

If anyone else has questions, or would like help adapting or changing this to fit your program, please shoot me an email or leave a comment.  I will respond.

You can (we all can) do more – your brain is lying to you, don’t believe it!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

1 thought on “Problem Solving

  1. Pingback: How Do You “Skin the Cat” | You Can Do More!

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